Architecture of Power: Palaces Citadels and Fortifications PDF

# The Architecture of Power: Palaces, Citadels and Fortifications ## Chapter 2 **Oleg Grabar** The expression of power has always been one of the functions of architecture. In Islam, that function is less easy to isolate since the same features recur in buildings of every type. But it is nonetheless real; Akbar was as alive to it as Louis XIV. Through their palaces, ceremonial gateways, fortresses and burial places, the powerful of the Islamic world proclaimed their glory in forms that outlasted their own lives and those of their dynasties. Akbar's new capital of Fatehpur Sikri, founded in 1569 to celebrate the birth of his son Jihängir, is perhaps the grandest of all such monuments. Laid out on a new site near Agra, it included a magnificent series of palaces, baths, kitchens, stables, treasuries, markets and mosques. The Gate of Victory leads into the courtyard of the Great Mosque, containing the tomb of the city's patron saint, Shaykh Salim Chishti. It is the supreme example of the symbolic gateway in Islam, an assertion of the monarch's power and splendour far in excess of any functional need. Ironically, it was also among the shortest-lived. Akbar, fighting on the fringes of the Mughal Empire, neglected Fatehpur Sikri, which was abandoned after his death. ## Gates - A gate serves to admit and to exclude. It is also a symbol of strength, security, and wealth. - **Granada:** The Gate of Justice, in the Alhambra, leads through the southern wall to the palace enclosure. Carved in the keystone of the arch is an upraised hand, probably a symbol of divine protection. - **Baghdad:** The Talisman Gate, dating from 1221, was unusual in having dragons carved above the door. - **Rabat:** The Gate of the Wind, built in the 12th century, is among the most richly decorated Moroccan gateways. A band of calligraphy encloses the whole. - **Jerusalem:** St Stephen's Gate, may originally have incorporated animal sculpture representing either magical protection or the arms of the reigning prince. - **Aleppo:** The double gates of the Citadel, connected by a bridge over a moat, proclaim impregnable strength. - **Cairo:** Is among the best preserved of Islamic cities and several of its ancient gates are intact. The Gate of God's Help and the Gate of Conquests were both built in the 11th century to traditional designs. Above the first is carved the Muslim profession of faith in küfi letters and an inscription giving the date, 1087. ## Walls and Towers - Military architecture is the most direct expression of power. At Diyarbakir, inscriptions and sculpture reinforce the physical strength of its black basalt walls. - **Skoura in Morocco and Baku in Soviet Azerbaydzhan** show how regional variations diversify what is basically the same architectural form. Brick patterning softens the severity of many North African buildings, while the Citadel at Baku contained an open pavilion behind its towering ramparts. - **From Yazd in Iran to Rumeli Hisar on the Bosphorus:** The type of defensive work with crenellated walls punctuated by towers remained standard. The walls of Yazd go back to the 14th century; they surround a desert city in an oasis, dependent for water on miles of underground conduits. Rumeli Hisar, by contrast, approaches more nearly a European château-fort; it was built as part of the Ottoman defence of Istanbul and already takes account of new developments in artillery. ## The Citadel - Almost every ancient Islamic urban center was dominated by its Citadel, a city within a city. The nearest Western equivalent is the Russian Kremlin, which also contains palaces, churches, barracks and offices cut off from the rest of the city by strong walls. - The **Alhambra**, built by the kings of Granada as the last expression of Muslim power in Spain, is the most perfectly preserved. - **Cairo**, dates, in its present form, from the 12th century but is now overshadowed by the enormous 19th-century mosque of Muhammad 'Alī. - **Herat,** in Afghanistan, was a pre-Islamic stronghold, which attained its greatest glory under the Timürids. - The **Citadel of Jerusalem,** once the palace of Herod, has also been fortified since remote Antiquity. The last rebuilding of the walls was under the Ottomans in the 16th century. - **Bam,** in Iran, commanded an important trade and invasion route. Its virtually impregnable Citadel was rebuilt in the 16th and 17th centuries. - **Aleppo,** has the most spectacular of all Citadels. Built on a partly artificial mound in the centre of the city, it is surrounded by a massive wall and entered by the elaborate gate. Inside the enclosure the planning was haphazard, but it contained an audience hall, a mosque, baths, living quarters and all the amenities of an independent town. ## The Mausoleum - Outliving death, the power and glory of Muslim rulers was given public expression in a series of magnificent tombs. Despite a lack of orthodox religious sanction, these tombs are characteristic of virtually all Islamic dynasties. - In Cairo, the Qarafa cemetery is a competitive display of family wealth. - **The Gunbad-i Qabüs ('Dome of Qäbüs'), near Gorgan in Iran,** was built by this local ruler in 1006 to house his remains and commemorate his name. He succeeded, but his body, which is said to have been suspended in a coffin some 50 metres above the ground, has long since disappeared. - **At Sasaram, India, stands the mausoleum of Shir Shah Sür,** an Afghan who temporarily ousted the Mughals between 1540 and 1545. Less famous than the Taj Mahal, it is nevertheless its rival in dignity and monumental effect. The dome, reflected like that of the Taj in an artificial lake, rises more than 50 metres above the water. - **Soltaniyeh** was founded by the Mongol rulers of Iran in the 14th century and was for a brief period their capital. Like many greater cities, including Baghdad and Cairo, it is an example of an entire city conceived as an expression of the monarch's power, and was originally intended as a centre of pilgrimage. Most of its glories have disappeared, leaving only this vast mausoleum of Öljeytu, who died I 1316. Dominating the village sited on the remains of his once remarkable city, Öljeytus tomb still suggests past splendours, wheni its eight minarets encircled the huge pointed dome covered in blue glazed tiles. ## Outside the Cities - Closer to palaces as understood in the West are the complexes of buildings erected by Islamic rulers in remote areas away from the cities. Their purpose was primarily for administration or private pleasure. From outside, they are often indistinguishable from fortresses, but inside they are furnished with every luxury. - **Ukhaydir,** is perhaps the most impressive of the early Islamic palaces. Probably built by an Abbasid prince in the 8th century, it is a huge rectangle, the walls being articulated by closely set buttresses. Inside, it must have been a miniature city, with an elaborate palace complex on the north side. - **Mshatta, in Jordan, lies near the pilgrim route from Damascus to Mecca,** and was also built in the 8th century. The palace was decorated with highly sophisticated carved panels. - **Lashkari Bāzār, in Afghanistan,** is a monument to Ghaznavid power of the 11th and 12th centuries. Behind its massive towers lay rich apartments, originally adorned with paintings and figure sculpture. - **Morocco** contains a series of such feudal castles situated away from urban centres. The architectural style is local and vernacular. - **Doğuabayazit,** in eastern Anatolia, is an extraordinary mixture of Ottoman and European details; it was built by Işaq Paşa in the 18th century. ## Palaces: The Topkapi, Istanbul - For the centre of the might Ottoman Empire, the Topkapi seems at first surprisingly unassertive. Indeed, it is not a palace at all in the European sense, but a series of small buildings arranged informally and furnished with the utmost luxury. - Selim III gives audience at the Gate of Felicity. - A bird's-eye view form the west, with the main gate in the foreground, the Gate of Felicity facing it, and the harem on the left. - The harem, or women's quarters, consists of a warren of small rooms, halls and passages tightly segregated from the rest of the Topkapi. The range on the lft housed the black eunuchs. The domes on the right belong to the Divan. - The younger brothers of a sultan, who were fortunate if they escaped execution, were immured in a separate building known as 'the Cage'. Here we are looking out into the Courtyard of the Cage: on the right is the 'Golden Road' between the men's quarters and the harem. - The bedroom of Murad III, immediately next to the Cage, is one of the most luxurious chambers in the palace. It is lined with coloured tiles and rooffed with a high dome. Round the upper part of the room runs an inscription in küfi. - The Baghdad kiosk was built by Murad IV to celebrate his capture of that city in 1638. It is preceded by a typical pool with a fountain, and beyond lies open to the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. - The kitchen occupied a whole wing of the first courtyard. There were ten large double kitchens, each with its chimney. In 1534 they employed fifty cooks, as well as hundreds of more menial servants. - The Chinili kiosk lies outside the walls of the Topkapi proper but formed part of the palace complex. It is especially notable for the magnificent glazed Iznik tiles with which its entire surface is covered. ## The Palace: Granada, Isfahan, Agra - The Islamic palace was built both for ceremony and for comfort, for public ostentation and for private pleasure. - In the halls and courts of the **Alhambra** at Granada, and in the garden pavilion of the Hasht Bihisht at Isfahan we catch some echo of that exquisitely contrived world. ## Akbar, founder of Fatehpur Sikri, - Was unique among Islamic rulers in his vision of a universal state drawing upon the best in all cultures and all religions. That vision was symbolized in his audience hall, in which the emperor's throne was placed upon a central pillar connected by bridges. Beneath him, visitors, philosophers, and politicians met and argued. ## Shah Jihan, Akbar's grandson, - Held court in the Red Fort at Agra, where he built the Diwan-i-'Amm. A contemporary miniature shows him receiving an embassy there. The emperor's throne was on a raised alcove of white marble, and the room surrounded by pierced stone screens through which ladies could watch the proceedings. ## The Powerful At Home - It was traditional for the rich families of most Islamic countries to make public display of their wealth in charitable foundations and tombs, but for their domestic life they preferred seclusion. The 'Azam family mansion at Hama, in Syria. consists of a series of lavishly furnished rooms arranged informally, like a Topkapi in miniature. ## The Expression of Power in Architecture - The expression of power is in many ways an automatic attribute of monumental architecture. The quarrying of stones, the firing of bricks, the planning of buildings and the organization of work gangs, the acquisition of often expensive material for decoration, these and many other activities required by any large-scale constructions demanded financial means and a legal authority that was generally available in the past to only a few rich ruling princes. Even public and collective monuments such as mosques and caravan-serais reflected the glory, vanity, and power of the sultans, caliphs, or amirs, under whose reigns they were erected and whose names are permenantly celebrated in their inscriptions. From Qairouan in them 9th century to Cordoba in the 10th, Isfahan in the 11th, or Delhi in the 13th, the great congregational mosques of Islam were provided with a totally or partially secluded area, the maqsūra, which was brilliantly decorated and at times innovative and inventive in both construction and composition. It was the place of the prince, the visible presence of earthly power in the building belonging to the whole community of believers. - And it is proably not an accident that the earliest remaining monumental caravanserai in Islamic architecture, Qasr al-Hayr East in the Syrian steppe, was part of a complex of buildings built on direct orders of the caliph Hisham, and that its façade is hardly distinguishable from the façade of a palace. - In later centuries Seljuq caravanserais in Anatolia or Safavid ones in Iran reflected and broadcast, by the sheer quality of their masonry and decoration, the strength and glory of their princely patrons, even if their real purpose was mercantile. - Whatever its social or personal functions, there hardly exists a major monument of Islamic architecture that does not reflect power in some fashion. Even the gilt domes of Shi'i sanctuaries in Iran and Iraq are symbols both of holy places and of their wealthy royal patrons. Ostentation is rarely absent from architecture and ostentation is almost always an expression of power. - It is an obvious conclusion that power is inherent in architecture, and a consideration of the topic of power in Islamic architecture could consist merely in isolating those architectural motifs and practices that are most particularly associated with rulers or with the expression of wealth and of force. - There is a fundamental question raised by the consideration of power in architecture and, for that matter, by secular architecture in general. Since its functions are for the most part universal, to what extent and in what ways does it really illustrate cultural peculiarities? Palaces or fortifications are not restricted to Islam; how then do Islamic palaces or fortifications characterize this particular civilization? - In the third and concluding part of this chapter, I shall turn to the forms of power in Islamic architecture. Islam was in many ways like Imperial Rome, a unified formal culture, with many regional and chronological variations, but with a coherent sense of its identities - of a dar al-Islām that differed from other, barbarian or merely alien, realms. Were there forms that automatically expressed these differences, or is any architecture that is so closely tied to wealth and authority formally universal and only cosmetically different? ## Power - Monuments directly expressing power can be studied chronologically, emphasizing technical developments; regionally, explaining the forms imposed on architecture by local conditions; or preferably, by isolating a typology of power architecture as it is likely to have occurred throughout the Muslim world and combining it with a study of both chronological and regional distinctions. - The grouping of architectural types begins with primarily military and defensive architecture, continues with certain kinds of urban developments and offical palaces, and ends with the more elusive category of symbolic expressions of power. - Rough though it is, this grouping corresponds to a scale of complexity that ranges from simplist to most elaborate. It should, however, be kept in mind that many monuments or types of monuments belonged to several categories at the same time and especially that they often changed in significance and use over the centuries. For instance, the walls and gates of Fatimid Cairo first separated a dynastic city from an older urban system, but then were transformed into real or imaginary barriers between social groups; and in the Alhambra, a citadel which was a city, became the remote abode of princes. ## Military Architecture, The Expresion of Physical Power - When the frontiers of the Muslim world became stabilized around the middle of the 8th century, a more or less formalized system of defence was esablished almost by necessity. - We know form the historian Balādhuri, for instance, that as early as during the rule of the caliph 'Uthman (644-66), there was someone in charge of the fortresses of Armenia. Whether of not such an early date is likely for the creation of an official inspectorate of frontier defences, sooner or later, from Spain or the Moroccan confines of the Sahara to the Steppes of Central Asia, a system of military protection was certainly developed. - Insofar as its physical character can be imagined from written sources, it was intially centered almost exclusively on fortified citites. We have considerable information about the building and rebuilding of frontier towns, especially in Cilicia, where almost every early 'Abbasid caliph seems to have been involved in fortifying and garrisoning towns such as Tarsus or Massissa. - In North Africa small forts seem to have been constructed primarily, either to control Berber tribes or to protect the coastline against Byzantine incursions. In Spain, similar forts overlooked the major roads to the north. Information about other areas is scantier for early centuries, mostly because in Nubia, the Caucasus, or Central Asia the new Musilm frontier roughly coincided with older traditional cultural frontiers. - All the Arabs had to do was to take over Sasanian, Soghdian or Byzantine fortifications, and there is no apparent record in literary sources of unusual building activities or of novel functions. - Archaeological and visual information on all these defensive establishments is quite scanty for several centuries. Many of the tall tower-like buildings of packed earth and ocassionally mud-brick, which were found in Central Asia by several Soviet expeditions, may for instance have been forts protecting main roads and settlements rather than feudal estates, as has been argued by several scholars, but the evidence is too unclear to allow definite conclusions. In any event, whether on the Central Asian frontier or in Spain, whether in new frontier areas or in traditional ones, it is reasonable to assume that the early Muslims simply followed the older, prevailing types of military architecture. - This continuity in planning, technique, and construction is clearly apparent in two instances about which we are somewhat better informed; Diyarbakir, the ancient Amida on the upper Euphrates, and Merv in Khurasan. Furthermore, these two cities permit us to identify some of the standard components of Islamic military architecture, as it developed over the centuries. - In Diyarbakir, the walls of the city are still remarkably well preserved and, thanks to an unusual wealth of Muslim as well as earlier Roman and Byzantine inscriptions, the history of the walls and of their massive towers can be roughly worked out. - The key point is that the layout of the walls and their elevation were late Classical, as was the Citadel, which was located in the north-eastern corner of the fortified city. Mighty gates, bearing the names of the cities towards which they are directed, were set at stragetic points in the walls. A peculiarity of the walls and gates of Diyarbakir is the unusually rich decoration of sculptures that adorns them, which will be described in another context. - Located in the middle of an immense oasis surrounded by deserts, Merv in Khurasan (today in the Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan) bears lttle visual resemblance to Diyarbakir. Like all Iranian cities, Merv occupied a huge area rather than the restricted space of a northern Mesopotamian town. - But there also it was the pre-Islamic Merv, with its massive walls and characteristically Soghdian articulated buttressing, that became the first Muslim town; it contained a Citadel at its northern side and in all likelihood pre-Islamic functions were initially continued by the Arab conquers. - The originality of Merv lies in the fact that, possibly as early as the late 8th century, a new Muslim city was being built alongside the older one and it reproduced most of the structural features of its predecessor. As in Diyarbakir, gates served as focal points in each wall and their names reflected local topographical features. - Diyarbakir and Merv make it possible to define, early in Islamic history, three consistent components of Islamic military and defensive architecture: walls and towers, gates, Citadels. Initially, it seems, these features were almost exclusively characteristic of frontier areas and only appeared in the centre of the empire in rare instances such as Baghdad, where their importance was symbolic rather than practical. - But from the late 9th or 10th century onwards, as central authority weakened and political power was taken over by large numbers of local dynasties frequently fighting with each other, military architecture spread to almost every urban centre, and in many ways established itself as a consistent component of Islamic cities until artillery made such defences superfluous, and the remains were transformed into nodal points within the growth of cities. ## Walls and Towers - As early as the 9th century, the complex of cities known as Raqqa, on the Euphrates in Syria, was provided with a fortified enclosure. - The walls of the present-day city of Raqqa, massive mud-brick constructions preceded by a moat, may indeed be remnants of early 'Abbasid walls, although their exact date still requires archaeological investigation. - But the still unexplored circular city of Hiraqla, to the north of modern Raqqa, may in fact be a creation of Hārūn al-Rashid and, as air photographs and cursory ground surveys show, it was provided with impressive walls. - It is still uncertain whether the presence of defensive walls at Raqqa was the result of the direct impact of the capital Baghdad, of the fact that one of Raqqa's functions was to be an assembly point for military expeditions against Byzantium, of attempts to protect it against nomadic incursions, or of the proximity of Classical and Byzantine fortified cities in what used to be a frontier area before Islam. - Arguments exist for any one of these interpretations but a positive answer requires additional literary and archaeological investigations. - No such problem of interpretation exists for cities after the 10th century. Hardly a town of any significance existed without fortified walls, mighty towers, and elaborate gates often new ones, as in Herat, Yazd, or Damascus, but frequently totally or partialy refurbished pre-Islamic ones, as in Jerusalem or Istanbul. - From a purely architectural point of view, not much can be said about these walls and towers. Mostly, the are massive constructions built in materials characteristic of the region in which they are found: unbaked brick or packed earth in eastern Iran, stone in Syria and Palestine, various mixtures of brick and store in Spain. Round, square, or elongated towers served as buttresses, lodgings, arsenals, or whatever other military purpose may have been required. Crenellations, walkways, machicolations, and, ocassionaly, small protective cupolas at key intersections of walls were probably stock elements in the construction of most of these walls and towers. But although there are instances of major changes in wall construction - as in the switch from brick to sotre in 11th-century Egypt or in the bewildering masonry types found on the walls of Jerusalem - the purely defensive military walls of Islamic architecture are on the whole hardly novel or original, even if at times, as in the walls of Diyarbakir, the Alhambra, or the much later Iranian city of Bam, they are quite spectacular. ## Gates - Matters are more complicated when we turn to gates. Two types of plan predominate: the straight gate, which was primarily a passageway even when provided with massive doors; and the bent entrance, which has obvious defensive uses; becoming in a few instances, such as the Gate of Justice in the Alhambra, a double bent gate. Both types of gates have a long pre-Islamic history, and although the bent gate became more common in obviously military architecture and in the western parts of the Muslim world, both tended tto be used quite indiscriminately, especially in later centuries. - More interesting aspects of gates are their construction, their decoration, and the names given to them. Because the are so frequently dated, gates are one of our best examples for the history and development of vaults. For instance, i 11th-century Cairo or 14th century Granada the gates were built with an unusual number of different techniques of vaulting. Squinches coexist with pendentives, barrel vaults with cross vaults, simple semicircular arches with pointed or horseshoe arches. Gates can serve as a sort of gauge of the most common construction techniques and easily available materials of any one time. This is particularly so in areas where stone predominated, as baked brick was less frequently used in large-scale military monuments or has not been as well preserved. - It is even possible that certain innovations in Islamic vaulting techniques, especially the elaboration of squinches and of cross vaults, were the direct result of the importance of military architecture, for which strength and the prevention of fires, so common in wooden roofs and ceilings, were major objectives. - The decoration of gates is tied to the broader question of the symbolism of gates. Certain official city gates did acquire symbolic associations and, as we shall see, were proivded with appropriate visual expressions. Whether the more common and purely defensive gates were similarly decorated is a moot point. - There is the evidence of the animal sculptures on the gates of Diyarbakir or on St Stephen's Gate in Jerusalem, for both of which it is possible to suggest either a magical meaning of protection or a symbolic meaning of the sovereignty of individual princes. - A few literary references on early Islamic Isfahan tantalizingly suggest the possibility of astrological symbolism, and there is little doubt that further searches in written sources will yield additional examples of the same sort. But there does not seem to be a clear and consistent pattern to a visual symbolism of purely defensive gates in Islamic lands and each exception shoudl be seen and explained independently. - A similar question concerns the names of gates, and is answered in a similar manner. Most names are topographical, involving either he local characteristics of a city or of its suburbs, or the nearest major centre (Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem). Sometimes there are references to real or mythical events associated with the gate, as occur in some examples in Jerusalem. Most of these are once again unique instances. But many more cities had a bab al-sirr, a secret gate, possibly simply the means by which an army could easily leave or enter a city, rather that the gate of betrayal as some have interpreted it. A consistent name of gates is the Gate of the Lion, and it is true that on city gates in Derbend in the Caucasus or in Hamadan in Iran there seem to hve been reused ancient sculptures of lions. It is, however, still difficult to determine whether these examples had a consistent and fully developed symbolic value at all levels,and not merely at a popular one. ## Citadels - A more origianl development of Islamic military architecture is the Citadel, qal'a, kuhandiz or, more frequently in the western Islamic world, qasaba. - A fortified defensive unit, occupied by a king or by a feudal lord and located in an urban centre, is of course not a new development, for it is found in ancient Assyrian cities like Khorsabad, and probably from that time onwards it became the typical landmark of most Near Eastern cities. - In all likelihood the Arabs took over existing Citadels in the areas they conquered, but it is only in north-eastern Iran that the literary evidence is clear on this point, perhaps because Citadels were more common there in pre-Islamic times than elsewhere in the Middle East. - We shall see later on that another type of government building appeared in western and central provinces of the empire. As the authority of the caliphate declined and the Turkish military became the main, if not the exclusive, ruling force in most of the Muslim world, old Citadels were refurbished, for instance , in Jerusalem or Aleppo, and new ones were built, in Cairo and probably Damascus. - Beginning in the 10th or 11th centuries, practically every town of any importance from Transoxiana, for which we have the geographer Ibn Hawqal's description pf Bukhara's Citadel, to Egypt, even including many secondary cities such as Homs in Syria or Hisn Kayfa in Turkey, acquired seats of power. These took the form of a forbidding, fortificed area, usually built astride the city's walls, but sometimes tucked away in a commanding corner of the city, or much more rarely, situated outside the city. - The most spectacular and best preserved of these Citadels is the one in Aleppo, located on a partly natural and partly artificial mound overlooking the whole town. A superb stone glacis emphasizes the height of the monument, which can only be reached through a handsome bridge over moat. Inside, ornate, formal audience halls adjoin mosques, baths, living quarters, even a religious sanctuary dedicated to Abraham, cisterns, granaries, and prisons. There is something very haphazard about the internal arrangements of Aleppo's Citadel, possibly because of the rugged requirements of the terrain, but also because there was no setplan for Citadels, nothing comparable to to the formal order of Roman camps for instance, and Aleppo's Citadel grew according to the whims of individual local rulers. - Few Citadels are as impressive as Aleppo's, but most of them were located in such a fashion that both practically and symbolically they dominated the urban centres that they controlled. - Interior organization varied enormously. The Alhambra, in addition to the celebrated palaces, was originally a whole city with houses, a mosque, baths, and other amenities normally required by an urban system. - Ibn Hawqal describes Bukhara in the same manner, as a small city. - The Cairo Citadels included several palaces and mosques, and the Citadel of the Shirvan-Shah in Baku contained a unique open pavilion, more typical of garden palaces that of defence monuments. - Other Citadels, the one in Damascus for instance, was more exclusively military, with barracks, arsenals, granaries, jails, a small oratory, and occaisionally a slightly more formal apartment or reception area. - The variations in size and importance complicate any attempt to define the architecture of Citadels as a whole. - Another factor is that all of them have been so frequently modified over the centuries (many are still used today for purposes akin to their original ones) that elaborate archaeological investigations are needed before we can properly understand the character of their original constructions and the changes that were introduced. - It can be hypothesized that, initially, Citadels were strictly military, serving to accommodate alien soldiery away from the city's population. The reason why so many early Citadels are found in Iran, especially in the eastern provinces, maybe that in these areas of limited Arab presence, it was particularly important to maintain the contrast between conquers and conquered during the first centuries of Muslim rule. - As the version of feudalism peculiar to Islam developed and as local dynasties were founded, some amenities of life were introduced into Citadels, as well as official reception halls and other symbols of power such as fancy inscriptions on walls and gates - for example the spectacular monumental inscriptions on the 15th-century Citadel of Herat, and the sculptures of lions and snakes on Aleppo's Citadel. - Eventually the Citadel became the palace of local rulers or of governors appointed from elsewhere. It is as dynastic centres of authority that one should understand the late Islamic Citadels of Bukhara and Khiva. - They convey the prestige and fear developed around another type of architecture of power to be discussed later. - The tales of horror connected with them in the 19th century are the last vestiges of a far more elaborate way of life from a different age. - Formally, the constituent elements of Citadel architecture were drawn from the wide repertoire of forms and functions created elsewhere; baths from the city, reception halls form palaces, walls, and towers from defensive architecture. It is unlikely that there was a compositional order for Citadels, except possibly in the eastern Iranian world where they were the predominant form of princely architecture. - The originality of the Islamic Citadel lies rather in the fact that so many very different kinds if monuments - the magnificent rooms of the Alhambra or the equally impressive cisterns of Aleppo were found combined together in the same ensembles. ## Walls With Towers and Gates - Walls with towers, and gates and Citadels serve primarily military functions and are constructions that, different though individual examples may be from each other, are found all over the Muslim world and lend themselves to some sort of generalization. - Two other types of primarily military monuments should be mentioned, although the evidence for and about them is more spotty. One consists of single forts or other elaborate defence systems that were located outside major settlements and cities. - With a few exceptions, in the Levant (Ajlun in Jordan for example) under the impact of the Crusaders, and in the forbidding mountains of northern Iran where he Assassins built their castles (Alamut is the most celebrated example), the Islamic forld did not develop the isolated château-fort so typical of Western feudalism. - From the frontiers of Central Asia to the shores of the Bosphorus or to the Atlas Moutains, however, various rulers erected forts at key places in the regions under their rule, simply as protection for small garrisons. - These are frequently quite spectacular, as in the Ottoman fortifications on the Bosphorus, the Castle of Sighs at the entrance of the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan, or the eagle's nets of the southern Moroccan moutains, but architecturally they are hardly origianl. - The other type of military architecture consists of massive walls protecting certain key paths of invasion, in the manner of the Great Wall of China. - Although little-known archaeologically and not as common, they seem to have been built in pre-Islamic times both between tha Caucasus and tha Caspian Sea and in Central Asia. These walled penetrated into myth, especially in Iran, in the form pf the striking wall of iron built by Alexander the Great against the barbarians pf Gog and Magog. - Whether anything similar was constructed or even attempted under Muslim dynasties is not clear, but on the whole it seems unlikely. - Naval fortifications, including arsenals with walls blocking sea passages, covered docks fro ships, and storage spaces, form a special type of their own. These have been studied, in varying states of preservation, in Mahdia (Tunisia) and in Alanya on the south-eastern shore of Turkey. A reference in the geographical compendium of Ibn Hawqal indicates that similar but probably less elaborted protected harbours existed even on the Caspian Sea. - My last examnple of military architecture is a uniquely Islamic one: the still little-understood ribāt. Technically, his was a fortified place reserved for temporary or permanent warriors for the Faith who committed themselves to the defence of frontiers and to proselytizing. Several early examples are known archaeologically in Tunisia; the one in Sousse bears many resemblances to early Islamic palaces, but its interior arrangement of large halls, with a sizable mosque and minaret, identifies its special needs for meetings, keeping arms, and prayer. - Ribāts existed also on the Byzantine frontier and in Central Asia, but no examples have been identified with enough certitude to allow for any kind of generalized formal definition. ## The City as an Expression of Power - Islamic culture has always been primarily urban, and it is therefore not surprising that whole cities or parts of them were either conceived as expressions of power or, as I shall try to show, became the settings for various means of expressing power. - The very early Islamic cities of Iraq aand elsewhere could be interpreted as expressions of power. Basra, Kufa and Fustat were called mu'askar, military camps, and servedto separate the early community of the Faithful from the rest of he population. - As far as one can discover, however, there is little evidence that any of the physical characteristics pf these camps reflected their function, and for the most part they were planned as egalitarian communities rather than as visible expressions of physical or symbolic power. - The earliest clear example of a change is known only through texts; the city pf Wasit, built in Iraq in 702 or 703 to become the capital of this frequently unruly province. Its location, equidistant from the three main earlier Muklim settlements in Iraq, was symbolic of its peace-enforcing role. The doors of its gates were taken from earlier pre-Islamic cities, thus indicating that it took its place in a long succession of capital cities. Its major monument was a Green Dome similar, at least in name, to the dome that existed in the imperial palace in Damascus. The ideas developed in Wasit by the great Umayyad governor, al-Hajjāj, culminated a few decades later in the foundation of Baghdad in 769. Astronomers presided over the tracing of this round city, roughly a mile in diameter. A mighty wall with four axial gates, bearing the names of the provinces or cities towards which they led, enclosed an outer ring of living and commercial quarters, and, in the centre, a mosque and the imperial palace. The latter was provided with two superimposed domes, the symbolic centres of the city and of the universe. The uppermost dome was green, topped with the statue of a rider, and it was echoed by four gilt domes, one over each gate. Nothing survives of this Baghdad and it did not last very long in its ideal state. Contemporary or nearly contemporary literary sources, however, are sufficiently prcise to allow a reasonable reconstruction of a city whose geometric perfection, rationally conceived order, and even its name - the City of Peace -- served as a physical demonstration of the new empire's power and universal claims. - The theme of a new city as an expression of power ran through much of Islamic history. - When Cairo was founded in 969 as the dynastic capital of the missionary and exclusive Fatimids, some pf the procedures used in Baghdad were repeated and the Egyptian capital became known as th Victorious One, al-Qahira - although there is an alternate explanation that its name refers to the planet Mars. AS an example of urban design, Cairo was less impressive that Baghdad, although there too the palaces occupied roughly the central part of the city, and living quarters for selected groups of followers were set in the rest of the enclosure. The remains consist of stone walls and three gates, two of which are known as Gates of Victory, belonging to an 11th-century reconstruction. - To the idea of a city as an expression of power

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